Today at the Spanish Springs Library, the Citizen Advisory Board met with some community members to discuss wildfire preparedness. They heard from the County Sheriff's Office, city representatives, and Darrell Billings, a member of the county Search and Rescue team, who covered many of the wildfire topics.
When an emergency like a wildfire happens, it is important to make sure you have a go bag packed with essentials. This bag should be prepped, easy to grab, and contain necessities like medicine, first aid, food, and water that can last at least three days. Billings also says,
"Have some spare cash with you or change your clothes. Make sure you get your pets out. If you have pets, if you can bring a little bit of dog food, if you have dogs, or cat food. The idea is that when you get separated from your home, you have the essentials at least to go for 72 hours."
During an emergency, it is also important to have designated places to go if you were to be evacuated. Billings says that planning out one or even two safe spots to evacuate to can be crucial in an event like a wildfire.
"Have a place planned where you want to go."... A primary place and a secondary place, then you can share that with your family, and everybody will know where to find you in the event of an emergency."
Another major topic during tonight's meeting was ways you can keep your home defensible and safe against a wildfire. Billings touched on ways to tend to your home and help first responders fight a fire if it were on your property.
"Well, cleaning up all the brush, removing all the dead stuff around. If you have trees that are hanging over your house, get them trimmed up a little bit."..."Get rid of the weeds and don't grow anything really, really close to the house."
There is a link on our website with more information on defensible spaces, evacuation plans, and packing a go bag.
"We've seen devastation of fire in a lot of places lately, and to not be prepared is just not smart."..." Be prepared."
